Receiving means for receiving and mounting of wafers or sample holders or chucks are available in diverse versions and a flat receiving surface or mounting surface is important for the receiving means, so that structures, which are becoming smaller and smaller, can be correctly aligned and bonded on wafer surfaces, which are larger and larger over the entire wafer surface. This is especially important when a so-called prebonding step, which joins the wafers to one another by means of a separable interconnection, is carried out before the actual bond process. High alignment accuracy of the wafers to one another is especially important when an alignment accuracy or especially distortion values of <2 μm are to be achieved for all structures located on one or both wafers. In the vicinity of the alignment marks this succeeds especially well in the indicated receiving means and devices for alignment, so-called aligners, especially bond aligners. With increasing distance from the alignment marks, controlled and perfect alignment with alignment accuracies or especially distortion values better than 2 μm, especially better than 1 μm and even more preferably better than 0.25 μm cannot be achieved.